Room 412
by DarrenIsLove
Summary: Au. Merlin and Arthur end up as roommates in college. Slow relationship progression that will follow the growth of friendship as in BBC's Merlin, but will eventually become slash. Rated M for language and Merthur slash. Merlin/Arthur.
1. Encounters

Encounters

Merlin came from a little town, where everyone knew everyone, but he was always a little shy, brilliant in every subject except social norms. Everyone knew Merlin, but no one cared about what he had to say.

Arthur was star of the football team and the son of the largest law firm on the West Coast. Everyone knew his name, but only a select few got the chance to actually talk to him.

The two had absolutely nothing in common, other than that they both procrastinated mightily on getting into college and ended up being assigned roommates instead of getting a choice.

At Camelot U, there were six main dorm halls. Steven's and Jenkin's Halls were designated as female only, while Adam's and Paxton's were for males. The last two were both for honors students, which Arthur was not accepted into and Merlin chose not to join. Consequently, Merlin and Arthur both ended up in Adam's Hall on the fourth floor, the seventh door down on the right, room 412.

Dorm rooms are uncomfortably small, even if you are best friends with your roommate, but it can be hell if you don't get along with your dorm mate.

On the first day Arthur arrived he found his room and claimed all of the right side, and part of the left. He had been told that his roommate would arrive the next day. He took full advantage of his day by himself to settle in, his belongings taking up much more than his half of the room. By the time morning came Arthur had already filled up Merlin's entire closet.

Merlin stumbled his way through Adam's Hall, looking for the right room, which was either 142 or 412, according to the lady at the orientation table. He wandered the first floor of the hall, but there were no dorms, only a common room, laundry room, and a kitchen. So he set off to the fourth floor, dropping his bags on the second and third floors and running into a kid on the stairwell. He wasn't starting off on the best foot.

Arthur didn't wake up until past one in the afternoon and decided to grab a shower before his new roommate came. He grabbed a change of clothes and a towel and wandered out the door to look for the showers. He didn't even realize he forgot his key, he was always used to having the help to open doors for him, and so he didn't even have a key to his house before.

Merlin dragged his luggage across the fourth floor, his arms too weak to hold up all of the belongings he owned anymore. Just as he was passing room 408, some blonde idiot waked right into him. Merlin being of a lot smaller stature fell to the ground, while the athletically built blonde remained standing.

"Watch where you're going, idiot" the fair-haired male sneered.

"You're the one bounding down the hallways without looking, bastard. What, are you late for your class on how to be a prat?"

"Oh, you're a feisty little fairy, aren't you? Why don't you scurry off to Jenkin's Hall already?"

"Oh, bite me." Merlin muttered as he finished picking up the rest of his bags and trudged off to find his dorm, leaving the other guy behind before he got in a fight his first day. He knew that he would have been able to take the straw-colored haired man with his sorcery, but magic was still considered dangerous. No one trusted Merlin once they found out he was a wizard.

Arthur found the bathroom pretty quickly, though he did have a small run-in with some pathetic raven-haired kid in the hallway. Their encounter in the hallway was forgotten the moment he felt the hot water trickle down his back.

Merlin opened the door to his room after some panic about not being able to find his keys (which were still exactly where he had put them, in the front left pocket of his jeans, but with all his bags he had a hard time fishing them out). The door creaked open slowly as Merlin saw his room for the first time. It was a mess.

By the time Arthur got back to his room after a shower (which far exceeded his allotted time), Merlin had already put all of his stuff away and thrown a lot of his roommates stuff back to his side of the room. The left side of the room was pristine with everything put away while the right looked as though a tornado, a bomb, and a tsunami had passed through after a burglar had ransacked his room.

Merlin was reading when there was a knock at the door; he got up with a cat-like stretch to open the door. Arthur didn't look too happy to see his prized clothing thrown onto his bed and both were dismayed to see that their new roommate was the same one that they had just run into in the hallway half an hour ago.


	2. Not Such A Great Start

Not Such A Great Start

"What are you doing in my room?" the blonde drawled.

"This is my room, prat. Obviously, we're roommates. Why were you knocking? Don't you have a key?"

"Oh shut up, idiot and let me into my room? And what were you thinking throwing my stuff around? Every piece of that clothing is worth ten times your scrawny ass. Now move out of my way!" With a rough shove to Merlin's shoulder, Arthur strode into the room and collapsed onto his bed right on top of the clothing he was complaining about.

Merlin glared at his new roommate for another moment before going back to sitting cross-legged on his comforter, the only sound the turn of the pages of his science fiction novel. Sci-fi novels had always comforted Merlin, the heroes who were different than everyone else, those who saved people for a living, he felt like he could relate to them.

For three more days, the roommates ignored each other, except for the occasional throwing of possessions to the other side of the room, turning off of alarm clocks, and hiding shoes to make each other's lives a living hell.

They still barely knew more than each other's names when Leon came to visit on the last day before classes officially started.

Leon was a fairly nice guy; he had a big smile and curly strawberry-blonde hair. He was friendly and in need of a good shave and the closest friend that Arthur had ever had. He'd known Arthur for several years now, they went to high school together and had both played on the varsity football team. Leon had played tight end while Arthur was quarterback. Nearly every graduated football player from their team had ended up at Camelot University through a football scholarship or a hefty donation as was Arthur's case.

At the same time that Leon had come over to visit Arthur, Merlin had been leaving to go meet his new professor, Gaius Mayasson. Merlin had received a second letter along with his acceptance wherein the old man had stated that he had heard of Merlin's "enhanced abilities" and offer Merlin the chance to take an additional 'class' that was known as 'Medicinal Herbs and Applications" to the rest of the school, but which Merlin knew was actually a class on magic. Everything from changing the color of an object to healing a man with cancer would be taught to him by the professor, as long as he was a quick enough learner.

Merlin was running late. He was supposed to be meeting Professor Mayasson in about ten minutes, but thanks to his stupid roommate hiding his alarm clock and turning off the ringer on his cell phone he had only woken up when Leon had knocked on the door. Arthur was in the middle of some videogame or something, so he refused to get the door for his own friend. Merlin already liked Leon simply due to the fact that his arrival had woken him up, though he hadn't even seen his face yet and anyone who put up with his roommate had to be crazy.

"Arthur, open the door!" Leon cried as he pounded on the door, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "you dirty bastard" under his breath.

Leon greeted and shook hands with Merlin as they passed each other in the doorway. "Hey, I'm Leon; you must be Arthur's roomie." "I'm Merlin, and yeah. It's nice to meet you. Igottogo!" Merlin replied in a bit of a rush, his words slurring together as he sprinted out the door and consequently tripped down a flight of stairs. It was truly lucky that he was still alive what with all the accidents that Merlin had, though the magic that strummed through his veins and beat along with his heart probably had something to do with his continued good health.

"So what's the deal with Merlin? He looked like he was being chased by a pack of ravenous wolves. What did you do, Arthur?" Leon questioned as he shut the dorm room door with a small snap.

"Merlin? Who's Merlin?" Arthur drawled back without glancing up from his computer screen where he was playing a first person shooter game.

"Your roommate, idiot. Please tell me that you know your roommate's name! You've lived together for the last three days!"

"Don't start Leon. I don't want to hear it and you know I will just tune you out anyway. Besides, I doubt he knows my name yet either."

"Alright, I'll drop it for now, but you still need to try to get along with him. You do have to live together at least until the end of this year, you know."

"Yeah, thanks mother. Just hurry up and grab a controller."


	3. A Study In Magic

Author's Note: Hey there, everyone! I'm sorry that I haven't updated in, what, 6 months? To be honest, I had completely forgotten about this story, but I'm hoping that I can continue it now, I don't quite remember all my original ideas, but I should be able to come up with a decent storyline. I'm always open to suggestions and I would be willing to incorporate specific scenes or ideas in this story if you guys want, just send me a message with your ideas. Also, I don't have a beta, but I did read through the first chapter and fixed a couple of basic errors, I didn't read through this one though, and it was a bit hastily written, so if I've made any mistakes, feel free to point them out so I can fix them! Hope you guys have a great day and sorry again for not updating.

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><p><span>A Study In Magic<span>

Merlin managed to get to Professor Mayasson's office only five minutes late, which was impressive considering the amount of times that he fell on his way there.

Gaius was an old tottering man, physically older than he was biologically after years of studying, teaching, and battling with magic. His office was dark but not creepy or anything, just a bit old with not enough lighting and too much dust. A bookcase filled to the brim of texts on magic and creatures and the like. Another wall housed a set of shelves with a variety of herbs and potions, some that bubbled and smoked, others that looked like they held various body parts within jars covered in dust. It was definitely a bit intimidating, and yet, it was still homey with notes and papers scattered and stacked all around the room.

Merlin burst into the room in a flurry, knocking over a set of scales, a stack of papers, and tipping over a small vial of some green solution. Gaius didn't flinch or look up as Merlin stormed into the room, speaking between panting breaths something along the lines of "Sorry I'm late sir, my roommate turnedoffmyalarm that pretentious jerk andthenI couldn't find the rightbuilding" while shifting from foot to foot, readjusting his laptop bag on his shoulder with obvious nervousness.

Even though Gaius only caught parts of the phrases, Merlin really could speak quite quickly when he was stressed, he understood enough to assume that Merlin was having issues with his new roommate and therefore may be late in the future if they didn't find a way to work it out.

Calm as ever, Gaius glanced up over the top of his wire-framed glasses and slowly closed the leather-bound text he had been reading from.

"Merlin Emerson. You're new to campus, right? Just moved in a few days ago? For now I shall excuse your tardiness. From here on out, you should call me Gaius. We will meet every Tuesday at 10am, I already checked your schedule and it appears to fit well. I will teach you all that I can about magic, but first I'm going to need to get a baseline on your abilities. Tell me what you are able to do with your magic."

And so the first meeting between Gaius, who had a heart of gold and cared deeply for each of his students, and Merlin, who while extremely naturally talented was also uninterested in the basics of magic and wanted to move quickly into the more difficult aspects, occurred with little issue. Of course, over time, Merlin would see Gaius as a father figure, nagging but well-meaning, and Gaius would find Merlin to be his favorite, and more stubborn, pupil.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Leon played video games and drank back in the dorm room, skipping all of their classes for the day, planning to buy the lecture notes off some nerd the next day. As the alcohol took hold in there systems they grew louder and their game playing grew worse before they ended up curled together passed out drunk on Arthur's bed.

Merlin took a photo as soon as he got back to the dorm, for future black mail use, before heading out to the library to tackle the assignment Gaius had set upon him, to write an instructional essay on how to turn the color of an apple from red to orange, which was incredibly uninteresting, but Merlin wanted to make up for his tardiness, so he wrote three full pages before falling asleep with his a pen still clutched in his hand.

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><p>Second Author's Note: I know, I know, this is a bit of a shorter chapter, I'm sorry. I just have to get back into the swing of things and figure out where I want to go with this story now that I'm back on it, so bear with me please!<p> 


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